Re: [SLUG] Yet Another Hardware Recommendations Thread

From: Paul M Foster (paulf@quillandmouse.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 2005 - 18:32:35 EST


steve szmidt wrote:
> On Tuesday 20 December 2005 12:43, Paul M Foster wrote:
>
>>Here's what I'm interested in:
>>
>>1. Single-processor
>>
>>2. 32 bit (*not* 64 bit)
>>
>>3. 1GHz+ processor speed (decent on-chip cache, not 64k like this Via C3
>>chip I'm running)
>
>
> If you have any interests in sound stay away from VIA chipsets, as they mess
> with timings any way they like to. Makes sound processing very poor.
>

I have one on this machine. It's okay, but if I had to manually
configure it, I'd be lost. Can't speak to sound quality. Mostly I have
the speakers turned off, unless I want to listen to the occasional rare
MP3. I've got 500-1000 CDs, and a CD player by my desk. Ripping them
will have to wait... ;-}

> My older machine has a GeForce4 Ti 4200 which has decent 3D (and is really
> cheap today). Anyway, the point is that using the nvidia drivers have never
> been a real problem. They make the binary driver available and you just get
> one that matches your kernel. So it does not a problem.
>

Yeah, but I don't want to use a binary driver. That was the point. I'd
rather find a decent GPU that's natively supported by the kernel. I
don't want to go out and look for a driver.

> Radeon has not been so good on the other hand. But if Chris has one he knows
> works - good. TV out can be fun/handy at times.
>
> Usually you can build a decent machine anyway from $500 and up. With the
> specials going on at CompUSA you can get a really fast 300G drive for $99.
>

I can't imagine how I could ever fill up that much hard drive space!
Right now, I'm using about 10G on this 40G drive. Every time I go to buy
a hard drive at CompUSA, I have to search forever to find the smallest
hard drive they have.

>
> Now I've seen a bunch of s/w that has not been ported to 64 bit, or still have
> issues under 64bit. So I'm running 32 bit s/w on it for now.

There are some people who like to hack on their computers, and I
understand that. I just don't happen to be one of them. I'm more than
happy to hack config files until they work, but I don't want to have to
diddle my systems endlessly. I'm too busy.

-- 
Paul M. Foster
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